Overlord was one of the most highly underrated and unknown titles to most gamers in 2007. You got to play as the bad guy, reigning destruction on the world by burning down towns with your minions, killing the villagers, taking yourself a mistress and even having a few laughs along the way. It’s not too often that you get to play the evil dominator of the world and better yet in such a creative and entertaining way! On June 23rd, Codemasters released their sequel to Overlord and believe me; I was excited to get my hands on it! I mean, come on, who doesn’t want the opportunity to be a little… evil…. Hahahahaha!
Story
The ending of the first downloadable content for Overlord, Raising Hell, implied that the son of the original overlord was to be smuggled away to the snowy lands of Nordland. Overlord 2 begins here where you play as the Overlad, raising hell to the local children and townsfolk. The game takes a tragic turn as you are handed over to a legion of soldiers who have arrived from the Empire to cleanse the city of any magical power it may hold. Narrowly escaping death, the Overlad is found by Gnarl, the minion master, and is revealed his true identity as the new up and coming overlord. Having been tossed out and abandoned by your hometown, you are out to set revenge on all who have opposed you in your past.
Once you establish yourself as the new prominent threat of the lands, you decide to go after the leader of the Great Empire who is abolishing magic from the land, Solarius. The first few levels and the ending all feel pretty epic, but the story gets kind of bland in the middle, as it feels just repetitious. Luckily the rest of the game makes up for it.
Design
Overlord 2 took me roughly 22 hours to complete, and for most of the game, it was really fun. Unfortunately, if you want to fully upgrade your tower and unlock all of the weapons and armor, you have to do a ton of mindless grinding, which I gladly looked past.
Besides the main campaign, there are several multiplayer modes over Xbox live including co-op and versus game-play, and get this, split screen co-op games! It’s about time someone realizes split-screen is a great thing!
Overlord 2’s environments vary greatly ranging from snowy fields, to the open plains to adventures on the high seas. Along with the varied environments, you’ll run into a large cast of characters and monsters including happy skipping gnomes, Rastafarian effeminate elves, and even a baby seal loving giant gorilla!
One of the things I greatly enjoyed along my adventures was the boatload of dark comedy, especially from some of the crazy things the minions say. I found myself literally cracking up several times while playing from start to end. And lets not forget about the women in the game. No self-respecting ruler can call himself an overlord without a hand full of mistresses to keep his castle tidy. But you’d better buy them lots of gifts to keep them happy 
Gameplay
Overlord 2 is an action/adventure game unlike any other. While of course this means that you’ll have to solve a lot of puzzles, the way you do so is extremely fun. Overlord is all about the minions. While you yourself have the ability to fight with your weapon and cast a variety of spells, the game’s minions are the real focus of the game.
There are 4 types of minions. Browns are your speedy brawlers, reds are your fragile ranged attackers, greens are the assassins and blues are the healers. And in Overlord 2, the minions get an upgrade. They get mounts that grant them more abilities and make them significantly stronger. The minions now also have their own names and they level up over time. If your favorite minion dies, worry not, you can simply return to your dark tower and revive them. Controlling the minions sometimes can be rather frustrating, as they don’t always go where you want them. One particular moment that really got me screaming was when you have to make the spider mounts climb up a wall right after the spider boss. This little puzzle took me 45 freaking minutes because the minions just wouldn’t go where I was steering them. Speaking of bosses, they are tough; the final boss alone took me an hour and a half to beat because I kept dying 20 minutes into the fight.
A huge improvement over the original is your ability to restore your health and mana simply by walking near a gateway to the netherworld or by sacrificing one of your minions anywhere in combat. No longer do you have to hunt down health and mana pools to sacrifice your minions.
One final addition I’d like to comment on is the ships and rafts you are to sail. I don’t feel they added anything exciting to the game. On the other hand, siege weapons such as catapults and ballistas were added and those were great fun as they are capable of taking out entire legions of troops in a single shot, and believe me, you need that, because those legions are tough!
Presentation
Overlord 2 is beautiful, err… evil. There are several cg movies and they all look great, but I’ve always loved fantasy and medieval times, so I love to see big bad armored mofo’s with huge armaments. But the cg movies shouldn’t get all of the credit. The in-game graphics are wonderfully detailed and everything always runs very smoothly with no lagging or tearing! This is actually one of the better-looking games I’ve seen lately.
The overlord himself never actually speaks, but his mistresses have lots to say and their voice acting is decent enough, and the minions themselves are quite funny, but the real star of the show is Gnarl. His acting is great and his dialogs are hilarious! Screw the game-play and death and destruction, Gnarl is the reason to play this game.
Summary
Overlord 2 thankfully didn’t stray too far from its prequel. The core game-play mechanic of controlling the minions to solve puzzles and plunder and pillage is still intact, and that is what makes the series great. The levels are fun to play and are quite challenging sometimes, but the grind can get out of control and some of the content is rather repetitive. Overlord 2 gives us some new features, some good and some bad, so it really comes down to whether or not you want to be an evil dominator of the world. The comedy is dark and hilarious and even those sitting around the room should enjoy watching you play this game. If you are a fan of action/adventure games and have some extra cash sitting around, Overlord 2 could be for you.
